The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(34)
Aeddan shook his head. “From what I’ve seen of Aquila’s men, I’d be shocked to learn any of them could ride even with a saddle.”
“That should take care of that, then,” Cai said.
“What about the chariot ponies?” I asked. “What about Nyx? She’s the best driver we ever had.”
“Smash the spokes on all the chariot wheels,” Quint suggested. “Those can be rebuilt, but not without time and effort. All we need is a decent head start.”
Cai nodded. “Agreed.”
Elka accepted the solution, her mind already turned to other issues. “We can’t go back to the barracks for our own weapons,” she said. “Crossing the compound is too risky.”
She was right. I silently thanked the Morrigan that I’d had the foresight to retrieve my own swords. “If we can get to the equipment shed, we can at least pick up some gear there,” I said, “but there’s no guarantee we’ll make it even that far before we’re detected. In the meantime, you and the rest of the girls had best arm yourselves with anything you think might be useful.”
Elka cast a searching glance around Heron’s workroom, and I saw her eyes light up. She crossed over to a cabinet and plucked a wicked-toothed bone saw off a hook. She hefted it and nodded in satisfaction. I heard Quint sigh. When I looked over at him, he was gazing at Elka with utter devotion.
The other girls swiftly followed her example, snatching up anything off a shelf or from a hook that could be used to stab, slice, or bludgeon. Damya broke apart a wooden stool with her bare hands and distributed the legs as clubs. Ajani gathered up Heron’s surgical knives and shoved them through a strip of bandage cloth she’d looped across her torso so she could access the blades with ease. Gratia hefted a tall bronze lamp stand, and Meriel gripped a pair of pointed metal surgical implements in both hands. I couldn’t have even guessed what their intended purpose was, but was fairly certain Meriel would put them to good use. Even Tanis had found a weapon for herself—a corpse hook.
I let that pass without comment. Apparently, the prospect of having her heart torn from her chest and devoured had unearthed a previously unmined vein of courage in the young archer. At least she seemed resolved to join us.
Together with their makeshift weapons, the Achillea gladiatrices ranged around me in a loose circle, bruised and battered. But also quiet, competent, and very, very angry. Pontius Aquila, I thought, was operating under some fairly profound misapprehensions. He thought I was a fighting spirit?
I was one of many.
One of a defiant sisterhood.
“Antonia?” I said, glancing over at where she had drifted away from the rest of us. She looked on the verge of tears suddenly. “What is it?”
“My weapon . . .” She gestured to the stump of her arm, clad in the plain leather sheath she wore outside of the practice arena. “It’s in the trunk in my room, and, as you say, we can’t risk going back to the barracks. But I’m useless without it. The rest of you can make do, but I can’t. I can’t fight without my own blade, and I’ll only be an impediment. You might as well leave me behind with her.” She jerked her head at Lydia, where she lay unconscious on the bed.
My heart ached for Antonia—for her bitter frustration in that moment—but Neferet shook her head and sighed dramatically.
“What?” Antonia glared at her.
“Well . . .” Neferet exchanged a glance with Heron. “I was going to save this as a surprise for a special occasion.”
Antonia frowned in confusion.
“But since you’re making such a fuss . . .”
Neferet went over to Heron’s workbench and knelt down before a basket stacked with neatly folded lengths of linen. In spite of the gravity of our situation, I noticed the hint of a smile playing at the corners of Heron’s mouth.
I looked over at Elka but she just shrugged.
Neferet lifted the piled cloth and reached underneath to retrieve something that looked like a cross between an armored greave and one of Heron’s more diabolical medical instruments, crisscrossed with a web of leather straps and buckles. The leather was supple and polished to a deep sheen, and all of the metal fittings gleamed.
“I was just putting the final touches on it,” Neferet said, holding it out to Antonia. “Here. Try it on.”
Since the day Antonia had decided she wasn’t going to let her injury keep her out of the arena, she’d been experimenting with different apparatuses—various kinds of rigging so that her truncated arm could function as a weapon. She’d gone through a series of modifications, each one honing the device to give her more control and mobility. And clearly Neferet had been paying careful attention to what had worked and what hadn’t.
Antonia slid her arm into the leather greave. It ended in a half-moon-shaped blade that looked like it could cut through the toughest boot leather with ease. Neferet adjusted the straps and stepped back, her face splitting into a wide smile as Antonia took a few tentative swipes through the air in front of her.
“Just be careful,” Heron said. “It’s sharp.” An understatement.
Antonia lifted an eyebrow at him, grinning dangerously. Then she whirled in a full circle, the curved blade dancing through the air in an intricate series of attack patterns that culminated in an overhead arc. The blade whistled as she swept her weapon arm high overhead and down, burying one wickedly honed point of the blade a thumb-length deep into the wooden surface of his workbench.